Smart surfaces are becoming more and more popular in the field of intralogistics, as they combine great flexibility with easy reprogrammability. Pursuing this trend, the following article proposes a modular surface to perform handling tasks, such as sorting, stopping, or slowing down material flows. Differently from the current technology, the surface used is under-actuated, thus, it exploits the speed, already possessed by the object, or the gravity to perform, with a simplified hardware, for the aforementioned tasks. In practice, these handling actions are completed using an array of rotors, of which only the direction of the rotation axis is controlled. Moreover, the axis can only assume certain discrete orientations in the plane, further simplifying the design. Thus, what is created is a controllable and under-actuated friction field, which, in contrast with similar existing systems, does not require active driving forces to manipulate the material flow. In the article, the analytic model of the surface is described, and a software simulation environment is introduced to demonstrate its functioning. In addition, examples of sorting, slowing down, and stopping operations and a validation of the simulation itself are presented.

With the dynamic nature of today’s market demands, industries increasingly require flexible and adaptable systems to navigate through variable operational needs. In-plane manipulation systems, characterized by their ability to handle objects over an active surface, have emerged as promising solutions to address these challenges. This systematic literature review (SLR) investigates the landscape of in-plane manipulation systems, focusing on their classification, technological aspects, and emerging trends. Drawing upon a comprehensive search strategy, this review identifies and synthesizes relevant literature on the topic. Through structured data extraction and analysis, the review categorizes these devices based on their fields of application, employed technologies, common characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and existing gaps in research and development. The main technologies identified for material handling include MEMS, vibrations, cilia, pneumatic surfaces, variable-morphology surfaces, the use of rotors, and mobile platforms. These technologies are described based on their primary features and fields of application and are compared to highlight their unique advantages and limitations. Accordingly, this SLR aims to provide insights into the current state of the art, identify areas for further investigation, and inform future developments in in-plane material handling. Additionally, the findings of this review contribute to a deeper understanding of the capabilities, limitations, and potential applications of this kind of manipulation across various industries. Furthermore, the identification of gaps in existing literature, particularly regarding the complexity and efficiency of rotor systems, serves as a foundation for future research aimed at advancing the field and addressing the evolving needs of industries in an increasingly dynamic market landscape.

In material handling, numerous solutions have been proposed to enhance the flexibility and adaptability of transport systems. Among these solutions, smart surfaces stand out as one of the most interesting responses, utilizing an array of actuators for common feeding tasks. The current paper focuses on a novel system within this category, notable for its distinguishing factor of being underactuated. With this characteristic, the concept leads to a simplified cost-effective design and a not actively driven functioning, leveraging gravity or object own velocity to manipulate the material flow maintaining top class performances, as the sorting rate reaches 4000 pcs/h. Specifically, the article begins with an introduction of the concept design and its digital model, followed by a description of the experimental setup built to test the surface’s functionality and evaluate the predictions of the virtual counterpart. On top of that, a method to determine the essential parameters for the surface simulation is proposed and applied. As a result, the prototype successfully completed the three main intralogistic tasks experimented, i.e., sorting, slowing, and stopping of packages. Lastly, the digital model outcomes of the same operations were computed and compared with the measured results, demonstrating an accuracy of prediction with displacements and time errors below 7%.

Smart surfaces are becoming more and more popular in the field of intralogistics, as they combine great flexibility with easy reprogrammability. Pursuing this trend, the following article proposes a modular surface to perform handling tasks, such as sorting, stopping or slowing down material flows. The surface used is under-actuated, thus, it exploits the speed, already possessed by the object, or the gravity to perform, with a simplified hardware, the above mentioned tasks. In practice, these handling actions are completed using an array of rotors, of which only the direction of the rotation axis is controlled. Moreover, the axis can only assume certain discrete orientations in the plane, further simplifying the design. Thus, what is created is a controllable and under-actuated friction field to manipulate the material flow. In the article, the analytic model of the surface is described and a software simulation environment is introduced to demonstrate its functioning. In addition, examples of sorting, slowing down and stopping operations and a validation of the simulation itself are presented.

In the field of intralogistics, new systems are continuously being studied to increase flexibility and adaptability while striving to maintain high handling capabilities and performance. Among these new systems, this article focuses on a novel under-actuated intelligent surface capable of performing various handling tasks with a simplified design and without employing motors. The technology behind the device involves idle rotors, i.e., without motor-driven spinning, whose axis of rotation can be controlled in a few discrete positions. The system’s operation and digital model have already been tested and validated; however, a control system that makes the surface “smart” has not yet been developed. In this context, the following work analyzes control methodologies for the concept. Specifically, in a first phase, a threshold-based method is introduced and tested on a prototype of the surface for sorting and orientation operations. This basic technique involves actuating the surface modules according to pre-assigned rules once a chosen threshold condition is reached. In a second phase, instead, a decentralizd PID control is described and simulated based on real and potential industrial applications. Unlike the first method, in this case, it is the control law that defines the actuation and, through the dynamic description of the device, determines the best combination to achieve the goal. Additionally, the article illustrates how the difficulties introduced by the numerous nonlinearities, due to the under-actuation and the simplifications of the physical system, were overcome. For both control methods, promising results were obtained in terms of handling capability and errors in achieving the desired movement.